Hi Rand, For the last couple days I’ve had trouble commenting on your site. When I try to, I get a JaaScript/cookies reminder message page. My Firefox browser (38.05) has JavaScript turned on automatically. Cookies are set to accept. Does this have to do with your troubles in the site’s OS recently?

I once had an exchange with Rand about UK policing and UK police officers not carrying fire arms. My view is different from Rand’s. Different country but below is a post from A US citizen in the UK. The best thing about democracy and freedom is the right to peacefully disagree and still have respect for the other person’s point of view. In that spirit I add this post

I was raised in a pro-gun family. We spent weekends shooting, taking hunting trips or buying/selling at gun shows across Missouri. I took and passed hunter safety class, and know how to handle guns on my own. I’ve been using them practically since I could walk, and I enjoy doing so! I’ve been surrounded my whole life by firearms, and by the people who know how to handle them safely.

Speaking of America, there are also some places where I know aren’t safe to go alone. Or at night. I know what it feels like to walk home in the dark and genuinely be afraid for my life. I’ve locked my doors when driving through certain neighborhoods. I’ve clutched a pepper spray walking to my car (many times), wondering if I would need to use it. A jerk in a bar showed me his hidden holster, just to see if I would be afraid. The front window of my downtown office building was shot out overnight in a bad drug deal, while on another night a woman was shot and killed in the street, her car hijacked with her baby in the backseat. Sometimes from inside my St Louis apartment, I could even hear distant gunshots, a sound I’m extremely familiar with, and was thankful I had a shotgun for protection. In America we all assume these things are normal; we feel sad or scared but then move on. In the current world the scary things aren’t just happening in the dark alleys that you try to avoid. They happen in your home, your school, a concert, a nightclub. Places where you could easily be the victim, just by being in the wrong place.

For the last 19 months I’ve been living in England, where 20 years ago after a school shooting, guns were banned (with the exception of certain types for people with certain licenses). I’m no expert on this nation’s history, but I can say that in my time here I have never felt so safe in my life as I do in Newcastle upon Tyne. I can go anywhere I want in this city in the dead of night by myself and have never felt afraid. I haven’t heard of any gun-related crimes since being here. The schools are safe here. The dark alleys and nightclubs too. Regular policemen don’t even carry guns! There are still gun crimes in the UK, but at a much smaller rate. These things can’t be said for America during my time away… So far in 2018 alone (only 47 days) there have been 31 mass shootings (many in schools), 1,893 gun deaths and 3,278 gun injuries in America. My own dad was injured in an accidental shooting last month, when another person behaved recklessly near him with a loaded pistol.

I know how gun owners feel. I’ve felt it too. Guns are our right, and it’s what the country was founded on. Unfortunately it’s not enough in this world to say “well I’m a safe gun owner.” So what? Me too. Maybe you are, but you can’t control the people around you. Or people around your family. “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” True. So maybe let’s start by not handing a gun to someone trying to kill? Or to someone who hasn’t been trained properly? Maybe you don’t feel affected by the horrors on the news; wait until it affects your family personally, do you still feel the same? Still think everyone should have equal access, unchecked and unlimited? We created speed limits because of the few who would be negligent without them. I am a gun-loving American. But enough is enough. It can’t continue to be a free-for-all. I‘ve seen firsthand what can happen when a government steps up to make its citizens safer. How many more pointless deaths will there be before the American government finally does something too?
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